The invention permits the drying and baking of clay by means of providing heat that uses pressurized air as the conductor element. This characteristic gives it good performance and effectiveness for the work entrusted. At the same times the configuration as a longitudinal and continuous furnace provides the invention with a high degree of automation of the drying and baking process and avoids time associated with conventional discontinuous furnaces.
The invention has its scope within the industry dedicated to the manufacture of industrial furnaces. More specifically within the industry dedicated to the manufacture of industrial furnaces, the present invention applies to construction ceramic materials.
Manufacture of construction ceramic material is based on two fundamental activities: molding and baking. The first of which is normally carried out by introducing the unworked clay under pressure into molds in the hollow shape of the brick section it is desired to form, and obtaining a continuous form of plastic clay that is subsequently cut into the desired lengths by means of a wire or similar.
So that the clay has homogeneous properties and does not have air bubbles, it is made to pass through rollers located before being molded under pressure. This is usually carried out by means of an endless screw that places the clay in the above described molds.
Once the plastic and wet clay bricks are obtained in the length and sections desired, they are grouped together and placed in a furnace which first dries them at moderate temperature and then bakes them at an appreciably higher temperature.
The furnaces normally used are of the discontinuous and very large type which must be heated before placing the load of bricks to be dried and baked inside them. After approximately thirty hours, the heat supply is cut off and the furnace is slowly cooled in order to extract the product.
The process is slow and the size of the furnaces, although directly dependent on the capacity of the plant, is usually very large.
It would be advisable to have furnaces applicable to the manufacture of construction ceramic material that decreased the time the product is inside them and that reduced their general size. These improvements would give rise to a proportional decrease in the investment, proportional to the size, and in the operating costs, proportional to the time the bricks are inside the furnace.
The applicant, on the other hand, has no record of the existence of longitudinal continuous furnaces specifically applicable to the drying and baking of construction ceramic material.